Machine ethics via logic programming

Machine ethics is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that emerges from the need of imbuing autonomous agents with the capacity of moral decision-making. While some approaches provide implementations in Logic Programming (LP) systems, they have not exploited LP-based reasoning features that appear essential for moral reasoning. This PhD thesis aims at investigating further the appropriateness of LP, notably a combination of LP-based reasoning features, including techniques available in LP systems, to machine ethics. Moral facets, as studied in moral philosophy and psychology, that are amenable to computational modeling are identified, and mapped to appropriate LP concepts for representing and reasoning about them. The main contributions of the thesis are twofold. First, novel approaches are proposed for employing tabling in contextual abduction and updating – individually and combined – plus a LP approach of counterfactual reasoning; the latter being implemented on top of the aforementioned combined abduction and updating technique with tabling. They are all important to model various issues of the aforementioned moral facets. Second, a variety of LP-based reasoning features are applied to model the identified moral facets, through moral examples taken off-the-shelf from the morality literature. These applications include: (1) Modeling moral permissibility according to the Doctrines of Double Effect (DDE) and Triple Effect (DTE), demonstrating deontological and utilitarian judgments via integrity constraints (in abduction) and preferences over abductive scenarios; (2) Modeling moral reasoning under uncertainty of actions, via abduction and probabilistic LP; (3) Modeling moral updating (that allows other – possibly overriding – moral rules to be adopted by an agent, on top of those it currently follows) via the integration of tabling in contextual abduction and updating; and (4) Modeling moral permissibility and its justification via counterfactuals, where counterfactuals are used for formulating DDE.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)-grant SFRH/BD/72795/2010 ; CENTRIA and DI/FCT/UNL for the supplementary fundin

Information and Design: Book Symposium on Luciano Floridi’s The Logic of Information

Purpose – To review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS). Design/methodology/approach – Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions. Findings – Floridi’s PI, including this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects. Research implications – Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS. Originality/value – The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas

Evaluating ethics in planning : a heuristic framework for a just city : a thesis presented for partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University, Manawatū

Many urban planners are engaged with the idea that cities should be ‘Just’: that is, planning should facilitate good outcomes for the people who choose to live and work in cities, particularly the least advantaged. The concept of a just city is an evolving planning paradigm which focuses on the needs of the least advantaged. This thesis revisits existing ideas of what constitutes a just city and explores why planners should care about the effects of ethics on its realisation. It extends conceptual understandings of what constitutes a ‘just city’, through a focus on care ethics and kindness. Then, by developing and applying the Just City Plan Evaluation Approach (JCPEA), it presents a heuristic framework to surface embedded ethics invoked in planning policy. Ethics in urban planning have not been systematically considered in practice for decades. This inattention can be partially attributed to the distancing of planners from their role as public interest advocates, the multiplicity of competing views about what ethics should or could inform planning policy, and the lack of a systematic, formal approach to evaluate them. Yet normative views of what constitutes right and wrong are central to theoretical debates about planning and are used to inform arguments for or against policy. For decades, ethics of justice have dominated these debates. However, increasing calls for virtue ethics to complement justice ethics present an opportunity for the planning profession to reimagine its role as advocates for the public interest. The JCPEA is based on a theoretical understanding of: (a) theories of justice (b) care ethics, and (c) Fainstein’s concept of the just city and her three just city principles (equity, diversity, and democracy). It enables ethical arguments in planning discourse to be evaluated against four criteria – extent, focus, merit, and power, using both political discourse analysis and a Foucauldian-type discourse analysis. The application of this dual-method approach, to a suite of planning documents from Auckland, New Zealand, proved useful in identifying and evaluating ethics and power in planning. The current intention to replace the Resource Management Act 1991, provides an opportune time to begin a conversation about ethics in plans, to focus on particular ethics, to address the silences, ruptures, and subsequent power imbalances in planning discourse, and to take steps not just towards the realisation of just city ethics and principles in practice, but also to reflect on planning more broadly. Drawing on and extending existing just city narratives, this thesis posits kindness, a practical response to the needs of others, as a principle to invoke in planning policy. This principle of kindness is grounded in an ethic of care, but also sits within an emerging post-secular and intersectional approach to address injustice. It is an ethic that was first signaled by New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern in a speech to the UN General Assembly in 2018, when she called for ‘kindness’ as a means of pursuing peace, prosperity, and fairness, and which subsequently became part of the New Zealand response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Invoking kindness represents a step-change in ethics informing government policy and was a signal to the world that there is another way of governing. It is also an ethic that lends itself to planning practice. This thesis argues that exposing and discussing the ethical basis of planning discourse using this heuristic framework provides the means to give agency to planners to act as non-neutral arbiters of the public interest, and as parrhesiastes focussing on the needs of the least advantaged

The Contribution of Ethical Reasoning Skills in Forensic Science

Forensic science applies scientific methods to matters related to the legal system. Members of the forensic field are part of the criminal justice system charged with upholding justice through science. Numerous wrongful convictions and ethical issues involving forensic science indicate a need to dissect the field from a different perspective. Stories in the media regularly identify ethical issues in forensic science ranging from individual misconduct to systemic organizational failures that lead to injustice. Even with these journalistic investigations, a lack of awareness remains regarding the contribution of ethical reasoning skills in forensic science. This dissertation addresses that gap in the forensic field by discussing the potential contribution of ethical reasoning skills to forensic science. Additionally, embedded throughout the dissertation is a discussion regarding how the principles and reasoning in bioethics contributes to ethical reasoning skills in forensic science. The dissertation begins by exploring the criminal investigation process along with using a sexual assault investigation to explore paths where bioethics can guide practice. Next, the foundational ethical principles and reasoning in bioethics are presented. Examination of the foundational principles in bioethics and their application in healthcare ethics and research ethics provides the ethical groundwork from which ethical reasoning skills develop. Then a return to forensic science explores the ethical culture in the field. In addition to a bioethics framework, content focused on different reasoning models highlight the contribution of ethical reasoning skills in forensic science. The work of American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce that focuses on solving problems and analyzing situations using three types of reasoning modes is paramount to understanding and applying reasoning skills. Building on the theoretical foundation from the previous chapters, problem-based learning activities were developed to create educational tools designed to foster ethical reasoning skills in forensic science

If we could instil social justice values through clinical legal education, should we?

Universities are more than just institutions for the transfer of knowledge; they are institutions where students learn about the world and how it works, and in clinical legal education, there is a long and persistent tradition of seeing the formation of “social justice” clinicians as a principal educational goal. This article covers three areas: we ask “Why do we believe values are formed in clinic?” and in Section II “Do values change at university and if so, how?”, examining what evidence there is for a sufficient degree of plasticity in undergraduate populations so that values might change over a module or a year and what evidence there is that changes to values at university (if any) persist into later life. Section III takes a broader philosophical position in relation to legal education and the ethical imperatives of the teacher, asking “if we can make students believe something, is this a good thing?

Ethics, narratives and legitimacy in Defence acquisition

Purpose: This research examines the proposition that ethics in business functions as part of legitimising narratives, rather than as a normative framework to guide or assess behaviour. Methodology: The applied ethics context of the acquisition of UK military capabilities is employed as a case study to test the proposition. Adopting a critical realist paradigm, Bourdieu’s theory of practice is applied in two stages. Quantitative (survey) and qualitative (narrative interview) data are collected, from which a Weberian ideal type is developed via narrative analysis. Findings: The results reveal that the public/private sector interface should be understood as a Bourdieusian practice, in which people use narratives involving normative ethical claims as a means of delegitimising options that threaten their field positions and capital accumulations. It is argued that akrasia – acting against one’s best interests – can be explained in these terms, and that even if a normative ethics of Defence acquisition is one day possible, any theory of ethics should – for completion – attempt to take account of how ethics serves to support or delegitimise specific narratives in the business of acquisition. Research limitations/implications: The research builds on the literature on akrasia, suggesting that the options available to people in business are behaviourally as well as cognitively limited. Moreover, potential codes of ethics are overruled by symbolic power within a practice and hence have no effect. The research is not longitudinal and is limited to a case study that necessarily involved unrepresentative populations, although the methodology facilitates generalisation. Further work on public/private sector interfaces is needed to explore how other populations narrate challenges to convention. Originality/value: The research represents a novel application of Bourdieu’s theory of practice to the context of public/private sector integration and uniquely to Defence acquisition, disputing the viability and utility of codes of ethics as part of professionalising the acquisition function. It also offers a sociological explanation of akrasia

Human-Intelligence and Machine-Intelligence Decision Governance Formal Ontology

Since the beginning of the human race, decision making and rational thinking played a pivotal role for mankind to either exist and succeed or fail and become extinct. Self-awareness, cognitive thinking, creativity, and emotional magnitude allowed us to advance civilization and to take further steps toward achieving previously unreachable goals. From the invention of wheels to rockets and telegraph to satellite, all technological ventures went through many upgrades and updates. Recently, increasing computer CPU power and memory capacity contributed to smarter and faster computing appliances that, in turn, have accelerated the integration into and use of artificial intelligence (AI) in organizational processes and everyday life. Artificial intelligence can now be found in a wide range of organizational systems including healthcare and medical diagnosis, automated stock trading, robotic production, telecommunications, space explorations, and homeland security. Self-driving cars and drones are just the latest extensions of AI. This thrust of AI into organizations and daily life rests on the AI community’s unstated assumption of its ability to completely replicate human learning and intelligence in AI. Unfortunately, even today the AI community is not close to completely coding and emulating human intelligence into machines. Despite the revolution of digital and technology in the applications level, there has been little to no research in addressing the question of decision making governance in human-intelligent and machine-intelligent (HI-MI) systems. There also exists no foundational, core reference, or domain ontologies for HI-MI decision governance systems. Further, in absence of an expert reference base or body of knowledge (BoK) integrated with an ontological framework, decision makers must rely on best practices or standards that differ from organization to organization and government to government, contributing to systems failure in complex mission critical situations. It is still debatable whether and when human or machine decision capacity should govern or when a joint human-intelligence and machine-intelligence (HI-MI) decision capacity is required in any given decision situation. To address this deficiency, this research establishes a formal, top level foundational ontology of HI-MI decision governance in parallel with a grounded theory based body of knowledge which forms the theoretical foundation of a systemic HI-MI decision governance framework